The sport of archery has enjoyed wide expansion in recent years and the development of attachments and devices to increase the accuracy in the shooting of arrows has resulted in the development of a relatively wide range of improvements and attachments, as well as in the basic construction of bows, especially for purposes of increasing power as is desired in bows used for hunting purposes. In the use of bows for hunting, it is frequently necessary to hold the bow in peculiar positions different from a normal upright position as, for example, in target shooting. For example, when an arrow is disposed against one face of a bow and is supported in such position by suitable known means, it is sometimes necessary to hold the bow in a substantially horizontal position with the arrow disposed against the lower face in such position, whereby conventional positioning means will not retain the arrow against the bow under such conditions and the arrow falls from engagement with the bow, sometimes at a very crucial time, as when a hunted object is cited and shooting is desired. The present invention pertains to an improvement in means to preventing an arrow from falling from a shooting position with respect to the bow, under such circumstances as described above.
In relatively modern bows used for both target shooting and hunting, it has become customary to provide a relatively wide notch in one face of the bow substantially midway thereof, and this is sometimes known as a window within which an arrow is disposed, frequently by some type of positioning members which, in the main, consists of an abutment or plunger which engages the side of an arrow when disposed in the window and a supplemental support engages the lower surface, for example, of an arrow when positioned for shooting.
For normal shooting, such aforementioned positioning members are adequate and typical examples of such means comprise the subject matter of the following prior U.S. Pat. Nos.:
______________________________________ 3,760,788 Hartman Sept. 24, 1973 4,170,980 Killian Oct. 16, 1979 4,318,390 Trotter Mar. 9, 1982 4,332,232 Troncoso, Jr. June 1, 1982 4,398,528 Troncoso, Jr. Aug. 16, 1983 4,489,704 Troncoso, Jr. Dec. 25, 1984 ______________________________________
Among the foregoing patents, attention is directed to Killian, and Troncoso, Jr., '528 and '704, which all show laterally disposed plungers positioned to engage one side of the arrow which is closest to the face of the bow from which the arrow is projected and, in addition, additional means are shown which engage the lower surface of the arrow when disposed in shooting position but, in the main, it readily can be visualized that if, for example, the bow is disposed horizontally with the window lowermost, the illustrated positioning means are not sufficient to retain the arrow in shooting position within the window.
The aforementioned patent to Hartman discloses a bracket having spaced parallel edges which respectively engage lower portions of the shaft of an arrow and primarily are designed to accommodate an arrow with the feathers or fletches not engaging any part of the support means when said fletches move outwardly from the same.
Troncoso, Jr. '232, in FIG. 4, shows the shaft of an arrow securely wedged by a pair of members against one face of the window of the bow, but this position is indicated as being a locked position from which an arrow cannot be shot, since the shooting position is shown in different figures from that of the locked position.
The patent to Trotter shows a relatively complex mechanism for securing an arrow in shooting position within the window of a bow but the same is a complete assembly as distinguished from a single attachment adapted to be employed with other known rests or positioning means commonly used at present in bows for both target shooting, as well as hunting.